


Isle of the Lost Sparks

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: But we're having fun anyway, Disney's Descendants AU, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, The worldbuilding I've done is shoddy at best, and I don't know where I'm taking the plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 22:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16628054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Agatha wanted to get away from her mother. Tarvek wanted to find a solution to his father, and a way to the throne that was his by birth. Violetta wanted to find something she was not only good at, but enjoyed. And Seffie wanted to find happiness, and maybe, that didn't mean a Prince like people kept expecting.The way to find any of that, of course, is to get off the Isle of the Lost.----Disney's Descendants AU... kind of.





	Isle of the Lost Sparks

**Author's Note:**

> Listen just... take it. Just take it.
> 
> Warnings: references to parental abuse, conversation involving gaslighting, kidnapping, kids doing dangerous shit

The Isle of the Lost is split in three, divided by massive walls of light. The city of ghosts lays to one side. The city of monsters lies to another. The city of blades inhabits the last. While the ghosts and monsters loathe each other, the blades hold a tentative peace, letting either side pass through to them and back, if only in limited numbers.

Ghosts. Monsters. Blades.

Pretty names, if rather… inaccurate.

Not one of these names is mutually exclusive, really.

o.o.o.o.o

“Come on, Violetta!” Tarvek hissed, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching. “Just jump!”

“Says you!” Violetta whisper-yelled. “You’re like half a foot taller than me!”

Well, yes. Tarvek was two-and-a-half years older than Violetta. Given that he wasn’t even ten yet, that meant a lot.

Violetta made the jump, and they just barely managed to hide inside the deep recess of the window before someone passed by.

Violetta elbowed Tarvek in the ribs, and then carefully turned around to fiddle with the window lock.

“Hurry up!” Tarvek muttered. “Anevka can’t cover for us forever!”

“Got it!” Violetta exclaimed, and then swung the window open.

They tumbled in.

Tarvek lifted his head to face a death ray.

“Hi?” he tried.

“Who are you?” The little blonde girl demanded.

Wow. She was younger than Violetta and already had a death ray of her own?

 _Wow_.

“I’m Prince Tarvek,” he said. “This is my cousin, Violetta. She’s a Smoke Knight.”

“In _training_ ,” Violetta insisted. “I’m not a Knight _yet_.”

Tarvek ignored her and focused on the little blonde girl. “ _You’re_ Agatha Mongfish-Heterodyne, right? The Holy Child?”

“I’m _not_ a… a Holy Child, or whatever she’s been saying,” Agatha spat out. “My name is Agatha Clay.”

She did put the death ray down, though. Tarvek scrambled to his feet and tried to bow. He heard Violetta try to curtsy, even though she whispered “ _Heck!”_ as she got it a little wrong.

Again.

“I’d kiss your hand but there’s a death ray in it,” Tarvek told Miss Agatha. That was the best way to think about her right now, right?

“Why are you here?” Agatha demanded.

“I wanted to meet you!” Tarvek said.

“And he dragged me along to pick the lock for him,” Violetta grumbled. “Hi.”

“Why’d you wanna meet _me?”_ Agatha asked.

“I think my dad and your mom want us to get married some day,” Tarvek said. He felt himself twisting the toe of his shoes into the carpet, and forced himself to stop.

“I don’t wanna get married at _all_ ,” Agatha said, pointing the death ray at him.

Wow. She was _so cool_.

“What _do_ you want?” Tarvek asked.

“I… I wanna go home,” Agatha said. She didn’t put the death ray down, but her bottom lip was wobbling. She was tearing up.

Oh.

Okay.

Um.

“Violetta and I can help you get back!” Tarvek said, even though he knew it was a bad idea. He could probably spin it to his dad that he was doing it to gain Miss Agatha’s trust, right? “Um. We probably can’t do it tonight, though.”

“We need to go,” Violetta asserted, drawing herself up to her full height of four feet, two inches. “Anevka’s gonna run out of material soon.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Agatha said, looking Tarvek in the eye. She wiped her eyes with the back of one sleeve. “Tarvek, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “Um, how old are you?”

“I’m eight.”

“I’m twelve,” Tarvek offered, and then lightly kicked Violetta in the ankle, which got him another elbow to the… well, she was probably aiming for the ribs, but she hit his hip instead. “Violetta’s nine.”

“I’m almost ten!”

Agatha cracked a smile. She wiped at her eyes again. “Come back soon?”

Tarvek swept into another bow.

Violetta dragged him out the window.

o.o.o.o.o

“So?” Anevka asked.

“She’s got the most _amazing_ death ray,” Tarvek sighed. “She didn’t use it, though.”

“Boring,” Anevka decided.

“Just because you like it when people _actually_ try to kill you, just so you can you kill them back…” Tarvek  muttered.

“I want a consort to have a _spine_ , little brother,” Anevka said, flipping through a few pages of her book. She scribbled down a note. “But it at least seems Father’s going to be pleased, if you like her. Does she like you back? The match will go better if she does.”

“I…” Tarvek’s face fell. “I have an idea? But I need you to make a distraction. A big one.”

Anevka put her pen down and turned to look at Tarvek, eyes half-lidded with consideration. “How big?”

“Big enough to break Miss Agatha out of her tower and sneak her back to the City of Monsters,” Tarvek said, hoping he sounded more confident than he was.

 Anevka tilted her head. “Hm. That’ll need more than just me, this time.”

“I know,” Tarvek admitted.

“Seffie, maybe,” Anevka mused. “You think you can get around the adults?”

“Violetta’s better than she thinks she is,” Tarvek said. “And if you’re distracting everyone…”

Anevka tapped her pen against her chin. “Martellus’s birthday party. I can make that work, if Seffie’s in on it.”

Tarvek hoped it would be enough.

o.o.o.o.o

“Adam!”

Agatha flew into her father’s arms.

Tarvek and Violetta watched from the eaves of a house across the street. Agatha’s house was in a relatively well-kept part of town, even if it was small. Her parents looked nice, even if the woman was sporting a massive burn on one side, and the man was using a crutch and sporting a black eye.

“Lilith, is Doctor Beetle home?”

“No, but we’ll send someone to get him soon,” her mother promised. She shared a worried look with… Adam, was it? “Maybe we’ll call Gkika in.”

Violetta shifted a little closer to Tarvek, and whispered, “She seems happy with them.”

Tarvek nodded. There was a bit of a lump in his throat. He tried not to think about the cause.

“We should get going,” Violetta said. “Before someone notices we’re gone.”

“Do you think they know that the ghosts are going to take her again?”

“Probably,” Violetta said. She pressed her shoulder against Tarvek’s. “We need to _go.”_

“We’re going to have to break her out again.”

“Maybe next time she’ll be able to do it herself,” Violetta said. She grabbed Tarvek’s sleeve and started pulling. “Let’s go!”

o.o.o.o.o

“Hello, Miss Agatha,” Tarvek said, after his father had pushed him into the room and locked the door. “It’s nice to see you again.”

She glared at him.

“They found out I helped you last time,” Tarvek offered. “And they’ve got Violetta under Madwa’s watch, so there’s not a lot going on there.”

“You said you were a Prince,” Agatha said flatly. “Where’s your castle?”

“Somewhere on the mainland, probably completely empty…” Tarvek said. He sat down next to Agatha, ignoring how dirty the floor probably was. They hadn’t gone with a nice room this time. Lady Lucrezia wasn’t coming up for a few hours, and even if she was already here, she was angry about Agatha having run off the _last_ time.

“So you had a castle, before our parents got sent here,” Agatha said.

“Sturmhalten,” Tarvek told her. “Maybe you can come see it, if we ever get off the island.”

Agatha scoffed and looked away. “My parents told me about _Lucrezia_. As long as she’s alive, and all the other villains, the Baron is going to keep us all locked up here, and nobody even gets to Spark out.”

“You think you’d be a Spark?”

“I’m a _Heterodyne_ , apparently,” Agatha groans. “So probably!”

Tarvek stiffened up a bit as Agatha’s head landed on his shoulder. She muttered, “I wanna go home.”

He patted her knee. “Maybe my sister will figure something out?”

“I thought you said Violetta was your cousin.”

“She is. I also have a sister. And more cousins.”

“Oh.”

She stayed quiet after that, and Tarvek tried talking. Mostly, he talked about what he’d like to do if he ever got to the mainland, where the heroes got to stay.

“The Muses?”

“You’ve never heard of them?”

“I think Dr. Beetle mentioned them a few times…”

“Well, the original Storm King, Andronicus Valois, there was a Spark that worked for him, called Van Rijn, and—”

He talked about the Muses for hours.

Then the door burst open, and Lucrezia came in, followed by Tarvek’s _father_ , and after that there was quite a lot of yelling about how Agatha hated Lucrezia, and how Lucrezia only wanted the best, really, and Aaronev surreptitiously trying to ask Tarvek if he’d managed to get on Agatha’s good side.

Agatha disappeared later in the night, and this time Tarvek didn’t even have anything to do with it.

o.o.o.o.o

This general series of events repeated itself six times before the Jägergenerals and Doctor Beetle of the City of Monsters met with Lucrezia, Aaronev, and Lady Vrin to work out some sort of… shared custody.

Tarvek didn’t really want to go, but _Grandma_ had come from the city of blades to mediate, which meant this was big and important, and also he just really wanted to see her again. She was the nicest adult in his life, if one didn’t count Mistress Von Pinn!

(Mistress Von Pinn hated Lady Lucrezia, and Lady Lucrezia didn’t seem to care a lot about _her_ , either, but Mistress Von Pinn liked children, and she always listened when Tarvek talked about Muses.)

(Tarvek had nearly broken through, once. He’d gotten whipped into a frenzy, tried to build something, and—and—and—)

(Well, the wall that held the Isle of the Lost away from Europa kept that from really working out properly.)

Agatha spent two weeks with Lucrezia and the Geisterdamen, and two weeks with the Jägerkin and her parents.

Like clockwork.

Martellus _tried_ to talk to Agatha, but she’d crossed her arms and pointed her nose in the air, and said, “I want to talk to Tarvek first!”

Aaronev and Lucrezia’s smiles were… encouraging, technically, but in all the wrong ways.

Tarvek decided to introduce her to Anevka, first, and if Anevka was with Seffie, then that was just fine.

(And if Martellus followed, with his giant, violent, excitable dogs… well, that was fine, too.)

(No, really.)

(Really.)

(R-really.)

“What are you _wearing?”_ Seffie demanded, the second Tarvek brought Agatha through the door, before he’d even gotten a chance to say anything.

“My clothes got ripped when I tried to run away,” Agatha snapped back. “What are _you_ wearing?”

Seffie wrinkled her nose, ignoring the question. “And they didn’t give you anything new? Barbarians! Tarvek, come help me!”

“What?” Tarvek asked, even as Seffie pulled his sleeve towards the nearest closet. “No, that’s all Anevka’s! She won’t fit!”

“He’s right,” Anevka said. She looked like she was enjoying the show. “I’m almost twice the girl’s age, Seffie.”

“I was just going to grab one of the smaller shifts,” Seffie argued. “Add a belt, and it works as a dress until we can get her something better.”

“Or Tarvek could alter it,” Martellus suggested. There was something of a grin on his face. “He’s a fan of that sort of thing. All the girly—”

“He is _not_ ,” Anevka said, tone icy. “Altering my clothing. We can get Miss Agatha her own dresses, or, yes, Tarvek could make something. And—Violetta, get out of my ceiling.”

“Ugh, fine,” Violetta said, dropping to the floor, right next to Martellus.

Martellus flinched. _Ha._

“And Martellus, Tarvek’s skill with a needle is the only reason you even have any clothing worth respecting, given our resources,” Anevka continued, crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat. “So I suggest you apologize to my _dear_ little brother, hm?”

Martellus wrinkled his nose. “Sorry, Tarvek. Sorry, Anevka.”

“That’s better.”

“Whoa,” Agatha whispered. She looked at how Martellus was still shying away from Anevka. “Your sister is _scary_.”

“I know,” Tarvek whispered back. He knew he wasn’t imagining the smirk on Anevka’s face either. “She’s fifteen, but we think she’s going to take over for Grandma in the city of blades.”

“I thought you were city of ghosts, though?”

“We are,” Anevka interrupted. Agatha squeaked and looked over at her, half-hiding behind Tarvek. Anevka smiled, entirely too smug. “At least, Tarvek and I are. Our father is rather infatuated with Lucrezia, but _most_ of the family is with Grandmother in the city of blades. This includes Xerxsephnia and Martellus, of course.”

“Grandma sends us here for important events and _family visits_ ,” Seffie explained. She actually used air quotes. Hm. “She’s also the one the Baron always talks to when he wants to change something on the Isle.”

“The Baron _talks_ to you?” Agatha asked. “I thought he didn’t touch the Isle after putting us all here!”

“He talks to Grandma,” Martellus asserted. “Sometimes Uncle Wilhelm, or Doctor Beetle.”

“One time, your mother tried to talk to him,” Anevka said. She smiled. “He shut the door in her face and had armed guards escort her from the building.”

“It was really cool,” Seffie whispered to Agatha.

“You weren’t even there,” Tarvek complained.

“It was cool to hear about!”

Agatha giggled.

“Ah, so the young lady can laugh,” Martellus said.

“I hope _you_ don’t try, considering the thing you call a sense of humor,” Anevka said quietly. Her face was downturned at a book, but there was a smile on her face.

“Anevka!”

“You should really stop leaving yourself so open,” Violetta said.

“And _you_ need to stop trying to steal things from people who are better than you,” Martellus said, grabbing Violetta’s hand, which had a knife in it.

Well, that was fair. Violetta _usually_ tested her thieving skills on Martellus anyway, and every time she got better at picking pockets, he got better at catching her.

Tarvek hoped she succeeded soon, so he could rub it in Martellus’s face. It probably wouldn’t happen for a while, since Martellus was fourteen and Violetta was only just _barely_ ten, now, but it would happen eventually. Maybe she could practice on Seffie first, since Seffie was only a year older than her…

“So!” Seffie exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Let’s get you a new outfit, yeah? Tarvek, where’s your workshop?”

“It’s just my room,” Tarvek protested weakly, even as Seffie slipped an arm through his, and looped the other through Agatha’s, dragging them both out the door. Violetta followed, and so did Martellus, which meant Tarvek got to have a _lot_ of fun trying not to get touched by static-ridden fur and big teeth and sharp claws and—

Tarvek did not like Martellus’s dogs.

Anevka stayed behind.

o.o.o.o.o

Agatha ended up looking _amazing_. She didn’t enjoy being fitted as much as Seffie and Violetta did, and… well, okay, Anevka and Martellus, too. Tarvek’s family just liked having nicer clothes than everyone else, even if nicer was only a relative term, and Agatha just wanted something that would _work_.

Tarvek had fun, though. Agatha was _blonde_ , and with a darker complexion than Seffie or Anevka, which meant that he got to play around with color combinations and styles he didn’t normally do.

He put her in a poofy dress, poofier than even Violetta’s last party dress, with black velvet and tulle and a few little bats everywhere.

“She looks like a doll,” Anevka commented. “Adorable, really.”

“Now we just need to give you a wand and you could be an evil fairy or something!” Seffie exclaimed. She fluttered around Agatha, taking in the outfit. “Anevka’s right. You’re adorable. Tarvek really outdid himself.”

“I have a few others,” Tarvek offered, getting Agatha’s attention again. “They’re better for running and climbing, if you want to join me and Violetta, or if you want to escape again.”

“Tarvek!”

“What?” Tarvek asked, giving Seffie a Look that he’d copied from Anevka. Given Seffie’s unimpressed look, he hadn’t succeeded. “We know she’s going to!”

“I am,” Agatha confirmed. She gave Tarvek a hug. “Thanks!”

Tarvek turned red.

Martellus laughed at him.

o.o.o.o.o

“They’re nice,” Agatha said, when she got home after the first two-week stint, bundled away in the small, clean house that her parents kept. “I know you said not to trust them, but I think the kids are okay.”

“Oh, honey, I know they seem that way,” Lilith said, pulling Agatha close and hugging her to her chest. “But they’re children of the Valois family. Even locked away here on the Isle of the Lost, they’re dangerous.”

“I know,” Agatha said, her voice small. “But… I like having friends. There aren’t a lot of kids here.”

“Agatha…” Lilith trailed off, sounding unsure. She kept hugging Agatha. “I’m so sorry it has to be this way.”

o.o.o.o.o

“Seffie, what the _hell_.”

Seffie looked up from the papers in front of her, still biting the tip of her pen, blinking at the light that had come into the room when Tarvek had flung the shades open.

“Nice to see you too, Tarvek,” she said flatly. “I’m good, thanks, how are you?”

“I was talking to Varpa—”

“Seriously?”

“And _she_ told me she’d heard you were doing something weird over here,” Tarvek said. He slid in next to her. “Are these _betting pools?”_

Seffie smiled at him, clearly proud. “Yes.”

“…Seffie.”

“Hm?”

“How many people are you bookie-ing for?” Tarvek asked.

“At the moment, ninety-seven,” Seffie reported, looking pleased with herself.

Tarvek looked down at the papers, then back at Seffie. “Seffie.”

“What now?”

“You are going to get _stabbed_.”

“Am not! So long as I keep records and don’t try to stiff someone, I’ll be fine!” Seffie rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows I take a small cut, Tarvek.”

“Who even _are_ these people?” Tarvek asked, looking over the papers.

“Mostly blades, some ghosts. Haven’t gotten the monsters, yet, but I’m working on it.”

“Okay, Seffie,” Tarvek said. He leaned back, putting a hand over his eyes. “Sure.”

“You’ll see,” Seffie sniffed. “It’s all going to work out _perfectly_.”

o.o.o.o.o

Tarvek kept Violetta and Seffie behind him when he knocked on the door to Mamma Gkika’s. Agatha had told him when and where her birthday party was, and the other two had insisted on coming. They’d managed to sneak into the city of monsters, and Seffie was even wearing a new dress she’d bribed Tarvek into making.

Tarvek still kept the two of them behind him, though, because he was the oldest and that meant he was supposed to take care of them.

(Yes, okay, that was technically Violetta’s inherited job, but Tarvek felt like that was kind of a bum deal when royalty barely even meant anything anymore.)

(Besides, she was barely _ten.)_

The door opened, and he was greeted by one of the creatures that the city of monsters was named after:

A Jäger.

“Hoy! Hyu’z the leedle Prince from der ghost city, yez?” the Jäger leaned down close and squinted at Tarvek. “Ve vozn’t verra sure hyu voz goink to mek eet.”

“I promised Agatha I’d try,” Tarvek said. He adjusted his glasses, trying to hide how nervous he was.

“And hyu royals alvayz keep hyu promeesez?” The Jäger asked, grinning wider. His teeth were very sharp.

“If a royal can’t keep their promises, then what justification do their citizens have for trusting them to keep their promises in the future?” Tarvek asked.

The Jäger stood up straight, tossed his head back, and laughed. “Hoy, hyu _eez_ vun ov de vuns vot vonts to be like old Valois heemself, den. Come een, Mizz Agatha’s birthday party already started, but hyu eezn’t _too_ late. Hy’m Jorgi. Hyu come find me if hyu get scared or gots qvestions, hokay?”

Tarvek nodded, trying not to flinch away, and trying to keep himself between the Jäger and his cousins.

Violetta elbowed him in the ribs for his troubles, but he managed it.

“Tarvek!”

A small blonde blur barreled into his chest, and he stepped back to keep her from falling over with him. “Hello, Miss Agatha!”

She popped back and beamed up at him. “You came!”

“I brought Seffie and Violetta,” Tarvek told her, and Agatha greeted _them_ with hugs, too.

She seemed happier here.

Maybe it was just that it was her birthday.

…Tarvek didn’t think so, though.

o.o.o.o.o

“Now, darling, why can’t you just accept that I want what’s best for you? If you’d just—”

“Because you don’t! Uncle Barry told me _everything_ , and Adam and Lilith told me more after he left, and I _know_ you’re evil! I know you were planning to use my body for your brain when I grew up! I know you—”

“Agatha, don’t be _dense_ , sweetheart, I scrapped that plan _ages_ ago, you know, I have much safer plans now, and they don’t involve harming a single hair on your adorable little h—”

“Don’t _touch_ me, mother!”

“Really, you’re being _ridiculous_ , if you’d just—”

Tarvek brought the hand he’d been raising down from the door. Knocking now was only going to make things worse. He already knew that from experience.

Maybe he could bake some cake so Agatha would have something to cheer her up after the visit with her mother was done?

o.o.o.o.o

“Wow,” Agatha gasped. She looked down at the array of knives and cut purses that Violetta had arranged on the bedspread. “You stole all that just on the way back from the Selnikov’s?”

“Yep,” Violetta said. She sat back against the headboard, arms crossed, face smug. “We don’t really have a lot of people left that can train new Knights, and the ones we _do_ are usually doing stuff for Grandma, so we have to find other ways to practice. Stealing from people is usually pretty good practice.”

Agatha looked down at it again, her face falling. “You should probably give it back, though, right?”

“Nah,” Violetta said. “I know you don’t like it when someone gets hurt even though they haven’t done anything wrong, so I made sure I was just stealing from really _terrible_ people.”

Agatha blinked at her.

Tarvek had been reading with his back to the bed, but he twisted around now to watch as Violetta recounted each piece.

“ _That_ one’s from Snarlantz; he destroyed Passholdt, you know, for your mother. This knife was from Martellus, when we saw him flirting with that girl and his dogs kept distracting him? _This_ purse is from Uncle Tybalt, he’s killed way more people than even the _Baron_ knows. And—”

Tarvek turned back to his book. Violetta had this.

o.o.o.o.o

“Girls?” Seffie asked.

Violetta winced. “Sometimes. Don’t tell anyone?”

“Hm,” Seffie said. She gave Violetta a look. “Want to know a secret?”

“What?”

“It’s ‘usually,’ for me,” she said. She waited for Violetta to process that. “I might like a boy once in a while. It would be a better marriage. But in the end… it’s usually girls.”

“Oh,” Violetta said, in a very small voice. “I thought…”

Seffie nudged her with her shoulder. “Talk to Tarvek and Anevka. Trust me. They helped me with the same thing.”

Violetta blinked at her. “Wait, what? I mean, I know everyone makes fun of Tarvek liking fashion meaning that… I mean, I know that’s not how it works, but _Anevka_ , too, that’s just—”

“Talk to them,” Seffie repeated. “Before you make assumptions. Just trust me when I say you’re not alone.”

“Okay,” Violetta said, leaning closer. “When’d you figure it out?”

“Hm… you know Marianna, the one whose mom used to be a Duchess?”

“The one who dyed her hair pink?”

“Mm-hm.”

“…Okay, yeah, I can see that.”

“She’s one of the smartest girls I’ve ever met,” Seffie said. She sighed. “Pity she’s straight.”

“You’ll find someone?”

“With a face like this? I’d be surprised if it was just some _one._ ”

“Seffie!”

o.o.o.o.o

“I don’t see why this is necessary,” Agatha muttered.

“Hold still,” Seffie told her, voice quiet as she concentrated. “It’s not necessary, not _really_ , you’re still young enough… but you need to start learning. There are people who will try to rip you to shreds if you let them take even an inch, so you claw your way to the top any way you can… and _then_ , you can do whatever you want.”

“Until then, though…” Seffie stepped back and held up a mirror. “Makeup is a mask. It’s a weapon. It’s one that was forced into your hands as way to perform, sure, but it’s one that you can control, if you take it from them. You’ve already got a beautiful face. Draw attention to it. Red lipstick, bold liner, whatever it takes and whatever you can get on this hellish pit of an island. Let them look at your face. They’ll miss what you’re saying, and they’ll miss what you’re doing. When you stab them in the back, when you death ray them in the face, when your leg finds its way between theirs because they came to close, they won’t see it.”

“I like makeup, I do, but it’s something that we’re told we _must_ use if we’re to be respectable,” Seffie said. She leaned in close and fixed Agatha with a serious expression. “So we wear it. We use it. And then, we use it _against_ them.”

“Them?” Agatha asked, breathless.

Seffie’s mouth curled into a cold, humorless smile. “Whoever pushed us into corners in the first place, my dear.”

She slipped around behind Agatha, pressed their cheeks together as she held up the mirror for them both to look through. “I learned half of that lesson from Grandmother. The rest, I learned from _Anevka._ ”

o.o.o.o.o

 _Isle of the Lost Sparks,_  
Collared by the Baron,  
Are you scared of the dark,  
In your land so barren.

 _Isle of the Lost Sparks,_  
Shiv’ring in the cold,  
Villains of the past, and,  
Minions of the old.

 _Isle of the Lost Sparks,_  
Time will pass you by.  
Your children grow up stealing,  
And don’t trust when you lie.

 _Isle of the Lost Sparks,_  
Monsters, Ghosts, and Blades,  
The heroes beat you back for good,  
Your stories are just shades.

 _Isle of the Lost Sparks,_  
Europa casts you out,  
The murderers of thousands,  
You’ll always live without.

 _Isle of the Lost Sparks,_  
You bled the people dry,  
You once destroyed Europa,  
We won’t care if you die.

 _Isle of the Lost Sparks,_  
For sorrys it’s too late,  
Forgiveness, we’re beyond, now,  
YOUR SPARKS, WE CONFISCATE.

o.o.o.o.o

They spent six years together.

They spent six years as friends.

Martellus and Anevka were old enough that they didn’t see the others as much, but the younger four grew close.

Agatha was clever. She was stubborn. She was possessive. Even as the youngest, she eventually found a way to be in charge, and none of them ever quite begrudged her for it. By the time she was twelve, she was closer to truly breaking through than anyone on the island, including those who had been Sparks before they were locked away. By the age of fourteen, it wasn’t just the children of the city of monsters that listened to her as the alpha Spark.

Violetta was a thief beyond compare. She’d managed to steal from Martellus dozens of times over, by then, even when he _wasn’t_ distracted by dogs and pretty girls. When Tarvek or Martellus or Anevka needed a piece for something they wanted to build, Violetta was the one that stole it from which adult might have had it. She was fast, she was sneaky, and she was, above all, a thief.

Seffie played bookie to half the Isle’s children, running bets for everyone who had the spare cash to place them. In a town full of burglars and brigands, thugs and thieves, children who stole and fought and sometimes even killed, she stood above the rest. She prided herself on keeping the bets honest and keeping full, meticulous records. If someone complained… well. They wouldn’t complain a second time.

Tarvek.

Poor, wonderful Tarvek.

He made all the clothes. He played all the instruments. He said all the right things. He danced the right dance. He broke all the hearts.

And he did it all with a blade behind every word, a growing dedication to murder Lucrezia behind every smile, a suspicion that his father was more of a danger than he’d thought behind every careful word.

(Anevka moved in with Grandmother, after Tarvek told her what he’d heard.)

So there they were. A genius with an army of monsters, just fourteen. A thief with a predilection for knives, sixteen. A bookie with a poisoned, pretty smile, seventeen. A ponce with a plan for perfection and patricide, eighteen.

Rulers of the youth of the Isle of the Lost.

Quite a lovely tableau.

This, of course, was when the invitation from the Baron’s son came.


End file.
